VANCOUVER REGIONAL FREENET ASSOCIATION
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
MINUTES OF MEETINGS
FEBRUARY 16, 1994
Vancouver Public Library
Present: Margaret Coates, Steven Chan, Susan Pendakur, Jacqueline Van Dyk,
Guy Thomas, Brian Campbell, Phil Lyons, Fritz Radandt, Eric Yung.
Missing: Tom Hansen, Boodie Arnett, Greg Buss.
Guest: Janet Askin
Meeting was called to order at 7:10pm.
1.0 Acceptance of the Agenda.
* agenda addition of Fundraising and User Support/Training
Motion: Jacqueline/Margaret: To add Fundraising and User Support/Training to
the agenda. PASSED.
2.0 Minutes
* access to poplar is currently not available to all board members.
* Fritz to get Mindlink account changed to telnet account
* Minutes to be dealt with at the next meeting.
3.0 Opening date: April 15
* 2 months (either the 11 or the 15 of April)
* Fritz: under PR, will port on opening day activites.
* discussion of Freenets across Canada participating
* Info Rights week kickoff @ noon across the country with a simultaneous
press conference at provincial capitols. The time is not yet established.
* A saturday night event with presentations was discussed.
* Brian: Monday - invite the press and dignitaries. The importance of this
item is to stress that the opening date is 2 months from tonight's meeting.
4.0 Policy Issues:
4.1 Ombudsman - Margaret did not bring the revised terms of references.
4.2 Industry Canada - (Brian)
* Gary Sherman has been approached for a $25,000 study of Freenets with
a goal for being self-sustaining. This money is to be spent by the 31st of
March. Brian was informed of this yesterday (Wed. Feb 15th).
* Brian: There is a BC Freenet phone conference at 4pm tomorrow (Thur. Feb. 17)
to discuss this.
* Guy: What does Brian want?
* Brian: viability of freenet financially from paper.
* Phil: does self-sustaining include government monies?
* Guy: what's the scope of this study? Brian replies that it's within BC.
* Steven: can the Terms of Reference be changed? Where is the money targeted?
* Mike: seems like this is a "white" paper to be shelved.
* Margaret: funding from where? Does it include commercial sources? Charges
for information? Self-sustaining should not be via charge/use.
* Margaret/Fritz: dont't want to be cut out of the loop as the report may
be helpful.
* Guy: How wide was the announcement and who else knows about this?
Motion: Fritz/Eric: To participate in the study and have it deal with our
concerns with self-sustainability.
* Margaret: More specific - "...that it looks at all sources aside from fee
for service..."
Unanimous vote. PASSED.
* Fritz to help Brian with telephone conference tomorrow.
4.3 Canarie Proposal: (Margaret and Steven)
* A handout was passed around.
* Brian: why approaching non-endorsers?
* Steven: necessary due to speed of acting - requirements are detailed in
handout.
* Brian: What do we get out of this?
* Guy: do we have resources for quality display on VRFA?
* Mike: good proposal - we need to hide backend system in proposals like this.
Could the overheads be bumped up?
* Phil: in long run we need to "bother" with this.
* Jacqueline: libraries are not just IPs but are general access.
* Mike: salient line item - BC Net costs need to be built-in.
Motion: Guy/Phil: To proceed to Canarie with proposal. PASSED unanimously.
4.4 Advisory Board - Brian
* Fundraising feels we need an advisory board with community clout.
* some discussion on this was carried out.
Motion: Phil/Susan: To setup an Advisory board with a high community profile,
that supports the goals of VRFA and work towards these goals with
their links to the community. PASSED unanimously
* Brian: really help with Fundraising efforts.
* Fritz: should this involve business people?
4.5 Board recruitment:
* Janet Asking introduces herself and gives a brief overview of her credentials
Motion: Jacqueline/Susan: To accept Janet as a Member-At-Large of the Board
of Directors of VRFA. PASSED unanimously.
* letter from Greg (Buss) stating his resignation from VRFA's Board.
Motion: Jacqueline/Eric: To accept Greg's resignation. PASSED unanimously.
5.0 Treasurer's Report:
* Tom is out of town and no report was given.
6.0 Endorsement Coordinator: Phil
* 67 endorsers thus far, with 60 listed in the list passed around.
Motion: Phil/Guy: To accept the Endorsement Coordinator's report. PASSED
7.0 Membership: Susan
* 230 total members with 5 new members this last two weeks.
Motion: Susan/Mike: To accept the Membership Coordinator's report. PASSED
8.0 Taskforce for Equal Access: Margaret
* this was dealt with under the Canarie proposals and no new work to date.
9.0 Committee reports:
9.1 Hardware/Software: Mike
* phone lines ordered
* domain name "ordered"
* Sun 4 from Motorola worked on
* IPX - is shipping - probably run Solaris 2.1 and will run Freeport using the
SunOS emulation stuff
* Brian: poplar connections?
* Mike to setup an account for Phil. Guy to handle logins for Margaret and
Janet. Fritz via outside source.
* 24 9600-baud modems next week from Cardinal.
* Brian: we need an operating agreement with UBC and one with BCNet.
Motion: Mike/Fritz: To accept the Hardware/Software Chair's report. PASSED.
9.2 Systeem Design: Steven
* no new information
* Need user registration and gopher for the next Board meeting
9.3 Community Content: Guy
* SET-BC meeting with IPs not well attended by IPs.
* training space needed - SFU Harbour Centre?
* Mike: approach Mark Gendron at BCIT?
* can we get some folders? (suggestions: Legal Services Society? Embossed?)
* Gladys or other sources for document updates?
* current list of IPs handed out.
* Fritz: government info?
* how do we stimulate the IPs?
* Eric: more information like stats etc. need to get to IPs to "excite" them
about VRFA.
Motion: Guy/Margaret: To accept the Community Content Chair's report. PASSED.
9.4 PR Community: Fritz
* opening ceremonies April 11-15th (Info Rights week).
* Steven: we have two events: 1) a very focussed political event and 2) a
community event.
* Brian: CityPlan from Vancouver
* discussion about a political event during the week
* Mike: we're waiting on the machine
* newsletter - for members - rough draft for next meeting
* PR for disenfranchised my duplicate efforts of Equal Access and thus may
require a member of the Equal Access task force. Margaret expressed
interest in helping.
* a letter to city councils should go out.
Motion: Fritz/Margaret: To accept the PR Chair's report. PASSED.
9.5 Fundraising: Brian
* new member to deal with service clubs.
* meetings every second Tuesday (1hour) from 6:30pm room 312 at VPL
* Cardinal modems mentioned.
* Teresa - corporations widened.
* Tom is dealing with BC 21 and the telephone company.
* Steven expressed an interest in helping with the BC 21 stuff.
* Phil: Sandy Mayo may want to be part of Fundraising
* copy of VanCity proposal at next meeting.
9.6 User Support/Training
* Phil - need to start now
* organize meeting for next week (Feb 22nd).
Meeting was adjourned by unanimous consent at 9:35pm.